His research focuses on the architecture of the city and the changing roles, approaches and tools of architects and urban designers from a cross-cultural perspective – including interest in the post-war public realm and the architecture of the city in Western and non-Western contexts.

He was previously Chair in Methods & Analysis in the Department of Architecture at the Technical University of Delft (TU Delft) in the Netherlands, and has taught at Copenhagen University, Denmark (1996-2005); the Catholic University of Leuven, the Netherlands (1997-2003); and was coordinator of the Centre for Flemish Architectural Archives (2003-06).

Tom Avermaete is the author of Another Modern: The Post-War Architecture and Urbanism of Candilis-Josic-Woods (NAi, 2005) and Casablanca, Chandigarh: A Report on Modernization (University of Chicago Press, 2014 with Maristella Casciato). He has also edited numerous books, including Shopping Towns Europe 1945-75: Commercial Collectivity and the Architecture of the Shopping Centre (Bloomsbury, 2017 with Janina Gosseye), and is a member of the editorial team of OASE Architectural Journal and the advisory board of the Architectural Theory Review, among others.